Thursday, October 19, 2006

Arguement Against Anarchy 1

In discussing anarchocapitalism with a certain state-glorifying friend-of-a-friend, I learned a bit about the anti-anarchist mentality.

He believed that people are inherently bloodthirsty ravenously murderous animals that would attack everyone else with anything they had available, and that the law gives people morality and allows them to cooperate with each other peacefully.

Oh, and for some strange reason, this applied to everybody except him. He was perfectly sane and rational and trustworthy, but everyone else was an animal that had to be kept in check. Elected officials are also exempt.

Let's look at the evident absurdities here, and why they might actually be believed.

1. People are inherently bloodthirsty, ravenously murderous animals that would attack everyone else with anything they had available.

Why its wrong: If people's natural tendency was to randomly kill each other, as he made certain I understood his position to be, we would be forever engaged in combat. Police are not numerous enough to prevent such nature from showing itself.

If it was correct: If it were people's nature to kill each other without reason or motive, the sane and rational people who enter government to control others for their own good would be killed before being able to do so, and there would be no controlling body to keep people's animal nature in check, and there would be no government.

2. The law gives people morality.

Why it's wrong: It's generally believed that what is moral is right, and what is immoral is wrong, and that what is legal is right, and what is illegal is wrong. This is a problematic belief because of the nature of morality and law. While law does occasionally emulate morality, and morality frequently emulates law, the two are not identical. They exist independantly of one another. "Do unto others as you would have them to unto you" is not a law, it is a moral. You can repeal laws against public nudity, for instance, by getting a certain group of people known as a legislature to repeal the law.

If it was correct: People's moral codes would never object to laws passed. If one has ever watched the news, one can see that this is not the case.

3. "I am excluded from this rule."

Why it's wrong: Fear arises from uncertainty, and uncertainty is a given when dealing with other people. One tends to fear that other people are directly opposed to them, not because it is the most likely possibility, but because it is the most dangerous possibility, and therefore the one that should be prepared for. The belief that one is excluded from the rule that all people are animal except oneself stems from the priority given to the emotion of fear of the most dangerous possibility.

This fear drives people to believe that for their own safety, everyone else must surely be restricted.

If it was correct: If all people were rational and sane and believed all other people to be irrational and insane animals, all people would unanimously agree that there needed to be some method for them to control others. What would that result in? Pretty much what we have today. It's ironic because the vast majority of people are not animal, yet the belief is held that they are.

4. Elected officials are exempt from this rule.

Why it's wrong: When you have democratic government, the governed are given some control over their government.

If it was correct: If that were the case, animals would vote for animals, the rational would vote for the rational, and if all others truly were animal, the animals would undoubtedly control the government.

Then there are Christians that think man is inherently evil because God/Jesus/whoever said so. People subscribing to this belief should also consider that God and Jesus have no problem with slavery, killing people that work on Saturdays (or Sundays, depending), owning women as property, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so don't believe the "inherently evil" part if you're not going to spend your weekends killing everyone you see working.

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